I cleared six figures’ worth of debt in Ireland. These are the low-risk ways to invest

Interested in investing? Here's how to get started

Listen | 25:03

If you've always thought investing is only for high-earning, suit-wearing, happy-hour cocktail swigging finance bros, Kel Galavan - aka MrsSmartMoneyHQ - is here to tell you why you're wrong. The Qualified Financial Advisor was in six figure debt after the 2008 financial crash, but has since turned her financial life around and now coaches others who are new to the investing game. In this episode she explains why saving is not enough and how the way to secure your financial future is with a long-term, lower-risk strategy. If you don't know your stocks from your shares or your IPO from your EFTs, this episode is for you.Presented by Aideen Finnegan. Produced by Declan Conlon and Aideen Finnegan.

Kel Galavan says she woke up one morning, thought to herself “I’m going to buy a house today” and by that afternoon had borrowed a ten thousand euro deposit and purchased a home worth seven times her income.

When was this? “About five minutes before the crash,” says Galavan who also goes by the handle MrsSmartMoneyHQ on social media.

On that fateful morning, was she a megabucks investor with a yacht, a private jet and several businesses to her name?

No, she was a Wexford woman who’d bought a home off plans in what was to become one of the country’s many ghost estates in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.

I cleared six figures’ worth of debt in Ireland. These are the low-risk ways to invest

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What followed was a classic tale of job loss (her husband’s), negative equity and struggling to pay creche fees, while her husband retrained in another career and Galavan, a microbiologist, became the breadwinner.

Several years later, and after clearing six figures worth of debt, she is now a Qualified Financial Advisor, coach and author.

While in Ireland “it’s far from investing you were reared”, Galavan explains that our typical path to wealth in this country has been to start a business or own property.

With those avenues are not available to everybody, investing is a much easier option with fewer barriers to entry.

While we are urged to have a pension plan “and max it out if you can”, Galavan reminds us there is still a gender pay gap and women are also more likely to take time out of their careers to mind children or relatives.

In this episode of Better With Money, Galavan explains how she got into investing, outlines the lower risk ways to achieve long-term wealth and sets out how you can get started even with small sums of money.

Listen to this discussion on the player above or search for Better With Money wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Aideen Finnegan. Produced by Declan Conlon and Aideen Finnegan.